Roseate Spoonbill

Canon EOS 7D
EF400mm f/5.6L USM
4/13/2012 – 4:48:53 PM
1/2500 sec
Manual
f/6.3
ISO 400
Handheld
Rookery at St. Augustine Alligator Farm
Raw, LR3, CS5, 78% of full frame

One photographer at the Alligator Farm said, "My camera just doesn't do pink well." :) :) :) It is definitely not easy, especially with the birds flying out of shadow into bright light and then into shadow again, all within 2-3 seconds.

I was happy with the background of this shot and with the position of the bird, but I would have liked to have had more room in front of the bird.

I am not at all sure of the postprocessing, the shadows, the highlights, dark, light, not enough difference between, too much difference between.

Also, someone mentioned to me that he feels that removing all the noise (and thus the texture) from the background while leaving the texture in the bird makes an odd-looking image. So I tried something different with this one and only lightly removed noise from the background, leaving more noise than I usually do. I don't know how I feel about it.

Your comments, opinions and suggestions regarding the above or anything else would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you!